A few days ago I talked about the new Nine Inch Nails album, With Teeth. Even though I had the CD, at that time I maintained my objectivity by carefully avoiding listening to it before reviewing it.
Since then I have listened to With Teeth several times (and The Hand That Feeds several thousand times in my head). I now feel able to report in more detail. Continue reading
With Teeth is Nine Inch Nails’ new long-anticipated five-years-in-the-making album. I loved The Fragile, their previous long-anticipated five-years-in-the-making album, and I had heard that this new one is quite different. Unfortunately, it is.
Initial reports were that this album goes straight for the jugular. “The is the album they should have released five years ago,” they said. It was meant to be the album that would get a wide audience after the long meandering The Fragile. Pop music fan that I am, I was looking forward to a set of punchy tracks like those on the Broken EP from last decade.
Harold Pinter’s Old Times portrays unsettling mind games played amongst a middle-aged couple and a visiting friend from their separate pasts. Last weekend I saw the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of this classic play.
Deeley and Kate play host to Anna, Kate’s old friend. Almost from the beginning, Anna seems to engage Deeley in a contest for Kate’s intimacy, almost like a grown-up version of a schoolyard “bestest friend” competition. Anna mixes up the past and present while Deeley looks frustratedly on. But in the end it looks as if Anna is not in control after all.
The story of Zatoichi has been around in Japanese movies and TV for a while. I saw this latest remake recently — it is a lot of fun, especially if you consider artistic, cinematic dismemberment to be fun. The director Takeshi Kitano said he wanted the blood in this film to “look like flowers blossoming across the screen”. It does have a certain unearthly quality that makes it quite mesmerising. And a good thing too, because there is a lot of blood in this film.
The sound is outstanding, particularly in the scenes where workers digging in a field or building a house spontaneously create a kind of rhythmic sound sculpture. I laughed. Continue reading
In 2003 I bought a Motorola E365. I hate it. Almost every day I discover a new thing I don’t like about it; finally, I couldn’t bottle up the bile any more, so I am venting my spleen here. If you are thinking of throwing your money away on this underengineered toy, please read this first, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Half bouncy and exciting, half pleasant and inconsequential. Like so much in life.
This album isn’t as good as I was expecting. About half the tracks sound like instrumental fillers from indie pop albums; they’re all worth a listen, but they don’t really hold the attention. Other tracks are better: there are a few energetic, lo-fi hip hop pieces with a bit of rapping. They sound old-skool in a good way to me, though why you’d trust the opinion of somebody who can’t even spell “school” is anybody’s guess.
This absorbing drama follows the rise and fall of the man who brought down the Berlin Wall. Well, perhaps I am overstating things, but Willy Brandt, West German Chancellor in the early ’70s, was a crucial figure in the years leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The play depicts the political manoeuvring going on around Brandt, particularly by his secretary Guenter Guillaume, who was also an East German double agent.
Two friends take a road trip through the wine country of California. One is trying to escape his past; the other is trying to escape his future. They meet a couple of women who open their eyes to the possibility of better things. Will they seize the opportunity, or will they go back to their old ways and dream forever of what might have been? They become a bit annoying as their foibles are revealed, but are ultimately endearing, despite both being losers in their own way.
There are many moments of humour and of pathos in this engaging film, but I was left with one overwhelming emotion: the desire to drink several bottles of fine red wine. If you can find a civilised cinema that serves wine, I would strongly recommend having a glass or two while you watch the film.
The first two songs on this album are so good that I can’t even remember what the rest of it is like.
Rufus Wainwright’s music had never really appealed to me before: what I had heard seemed a bit too earnest and folky. But last year I heard and liked a track from this album on the radio. Intrigued, I read some reviews and finally bought the album.
It’s the blues, but it’s also folk music, C&W and rap. Buck 65 rhymes like an old-school MC, but has the lyrical sensibility of a beat poet and the voice of a grizzled old trucker. His hard-luck tales of life on the downside are backed by dark, country & western inflected hip-hop beats. Of course, this is an oversimplification: there are a lot of different sounds and styles in here.
This was meant to be nothing more than a concert featuring three local singers. But it turned out to be lots of fun, if often incomprehensible, and had more strange, unexpected moments than you could shake a stick at, unless you’re really good at shaking sticks at strange, unexpected moments.
As a nod to the independent pop music scene in Hong Kong (such as it is), the Arts Festival included this show, featuring three local singer-songwriter types performing with a four-piece backing band.
Most of the time they were all on stage together, doing versions of their own songs and each other’s (or should that be others’?). The interaction between them was great. The on-stage chit-chat was absolutely hilarious, going by the audience reaction — I didn’t understand a word, since they spoke in Cantonese the whole time. (Strange, since half the songs were in English.)
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
This fun novel is also a puzzle and a fairly impressive display of linguistic virtuosity. The book is a progressive lipogram – it starts off normally, but its alphabet shrinks as the story goes on. It’s not too hard to write without using Z, but things get more interesting as letters like D, A and even E vanish. We see more and more creative synonyms being used and invented.
This book consists entirely of letters written by the characters to each other. I like the way the sentences are written – the story is set in a land that esteems words and literature above all, and it shows in the way the characters play with language.
I really liked this film. Affecting performances, likeable (but not too likeable) characters, and lots of funny, strange moments. A pretty accurate evocation of how Tokyo can appear to the newcomer. Ah, those were the days.
I got this jazz saxophonist’s album Rites years ago, so I was glad to finally see him perform with his group. Some say his playing is evocative of vast snow-covered plains, but I think they just say that because he comes from Norway.
Most of their pieces were build from soundscapes made by the four players, with a healthy dose of the extended solos you’d expect from a jazz group. Frequently, during a solo, the other players would chat to each other or wander offstage for a few minutes. But always the flow of the piece remained unbroken.
Legend has it that Art Pepper, in the midst of one of his habitual drink and drugs binges, picked up his saxophone for the first time in months and recorded this classic album with Miles Davis’s rhythm section.
Maybe not true, but a great story. Certainly his playing seems pretty sharp, but still you can imagine there was maybe the odd bottle of gin around during the recording. I’m certainly no expert, but this is an album that’s hard to dislike – good jazz standards with a mellow feel, by top players. It’s fun to listen to this and remember that the man who played this pleasant music had a lifestyle that would put Ozzie Osbourne to shame.
Beautiful, yet slightly unsettling, late-night dreamy sounds. Her languid vocals and the Twin Peaksy music just surround me and make me forget about everything else.
This album goes perfectly with a quiet midnight, dim lighting, and half a bottle of red wine. It evokes the disorienting moments of calm when you return home after a long night out. I could just get lost in it.
Lisa Germano used to sing with a group called OP8. They were good; this album is great.
This is a great CD. The Pancakes music is somewhat minimal, and the lyrics tend towards the bittersweet, but I just can’t get enough of these catchy hooks and fun melodies. It’s cute, but not at all too cute.
The Pancakes is a one-woman band: the music shows a great DIY ethic, mostly just voice, synths and guitar with no production trickery at all. It might be a bit lo-fi for some, but it all fits the lyrics and delivery beautifully. And the song Martin has been playing on endless repeat in my head for the last two weeks.
This CD comes with a second CD called Friendcakes, consisting of cover versions of Pancakes songs by other, even less well-known performers. I haven’t yet listened to it because I don’t want to take PCP out of my CD player…
Have they been taking happy pills? This is a pretty upbeat set, with their usual great melodies and naive vocals. So far I have enjoyed it immensely. It may not scale the quiet heights of “If You’re Feeling Sinister”, but I think it’s just going for a fuller sound. And it’s much better than the patchy “Storytelling”.
I am particularly amused that they rhyme “I’m a cuckoo” with “Harajuku”, since I used to live in Harajuku (Tokyo) until a few days ago. In fact, I bought this CD in Harajuku the day before I left. (And got a free badge with it.) Ah, good times, good times.
A fantastic collection of dreams. Most of these short pieces are less than a page long, but they perfectly convey that weird logic peculiar to dreams. It’s amazing how much he packs into such a short form.
I bought this randomly in a used bookshop, in a double edition with the same author’s Wearing Dad’s Head. WDH is similar to Airplane, but does seem to focus rather a lot on the author’s troubled relationship with his overbearing father. The makes the book more personal, but for me, less beautifully dream-like. (Your dreams may vary.)
Harry Potter books are always published just before my birthday, which is handy. This book is more of the same, with the emphasis on the more – a bit too close to 1000 pages for my liking.
This time around, apart from the usual conspiracies and evildoers, Harry must contend with the opposite sex. He proves to be as clueless with girls as he is clever with magic. (Time’s running out – he’s only got two more books to sort himself out.)
I was pleased with the way that quite a few plotlines from previous books are picked up, which helps sustain interest. I thought the book was paced well, given its length. Even so, parts of the denouement felt a bit perfunctory. (Don’t you hate those perfunctory denouements?)
Filled with many profound and powerful scenes, aided by superlatively heartfelt performances, and wrapped up beautifully in an understated yet resoundingly expressive score, this film is an unparalleled achievement in insightful, emotionally intricate cinema.
Oh wait a minute, that’s The Hours.
Another few fantastic hours in Middle Earth. Breathtaking to look at, but was it as engrossing as the first one? Anyway, I sat in amazement for most of it and I’m eagerly awaiting the Return of the King.
Is there such a thing as a sleazy ’60s noir road movie? If there is, then this is the soundtrack to it. The Raveonettes make sharp, guitar-based retro-rock (what?), they have wonderfully exotic-sounding names, and they’re much better-looking than the White Stripes.
Initially, this book is very disorienting. It’s a set of short descriptions of a strange, primitive society based on our own. Common words (house, dog, wire) take on bizarre meanings that you just have to guess at as you read deeper into this world. The whole thing is like a particularly unsettling and weird dream. By the end of the book, I felt I almost started to understand it. I’ll be reading it again.
Three men with big sticks get their shot at the big time. This is a really fun film set in the world of seedy pub pool tournaments. It compares favourably to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and it’s great to hear all those Kiwi accents!
Another side of Australia. A true story about achieving a seemingly impossible goal against apparently overwhelming odds. But despite that unpromising description, the film is absorbing and fairly unsentimental. Beautiful sound and visuals too.
A collection of varied short pieces. Some hilarious, some strange, but almost all beatufully written. Excellent for those with a short attention span. Hmm, I wonder what’s for lunch?
Lots of amusing snippets of writing, and part of an uncompleted third Dirk Gently book. A great reminder of how much fun Douglas Adams’s writing could be.
Nice, downbeat tale of a desperate writer’s tangled web. Mick Jagger is fun to watch in support.
1960s bubblegum pop meets modern retro stylings with a New Zealand indie vibe. And if you understand that sentence then you’ll enjoy this album. I did.
